Supreme Court to hear case against UT's race-conscious admissions

By Gary Scharrer :
October 9, 2012
: Updated: October 9, 2012 9:02pm

AUSTIN — Civil rights groups and business leaders on Tuesday stood up for the University of Texas admission policy, defending its role for protecting diversity, as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear the case against it today.

The court is set to hear oral arguments in the case brought by Abigail Noel Fisher, a white student from Sugar Land, who filed suit against UT after she was denied admission, claiming the school's policy discriminates against non-minorities in favor of less qualified minorities.

Cavazos fears that if the court agrees with that argument, it will become impossible for elite universities to consider race or ethnicity of applicants. If that happens, UT and its supporters have argued, diversity will drop from its relatively low levels.

Hispanics represented about 20 percent of UT's 51,000 student enrollment last year, while African Americans accounted for 4.6 percent. In the state's K-12 public school enrollment last year, Hispanic children made up about 51 percent and African-American children almost 13 percent of the enrollment.

Fisher had a 3.59 GPA — placing her in the top 12 percent of her high school class but short of the top 10 percent that would have qualified her for automatic admission under the state's top 10 percent law. UT officials have said that she would not have been admitted, regardless of her race.

“If any state action should respect racial equality, it is university admission. Selecting those who will benefit from the limited places available at universities has enormous consequences for the future of American students and the perceived fairness of government action,” Fisher's lawyer Bert Rein, of Washington, D.C. said in a brief to the court.

Lawyers for the University of Texas, in their court brief, say a diverse student body is indispensable to UT's mission to educate and train the future leaders of Texas and America.

The university receives some 30,000 applications for fewer than 4,000 slots in each incoming class.

“The number of students of color here at UT is still not enough,” said UT student Samantha Robles, a junior majoring in social work.

Robles observed that some minority students, including her and her friends, are often the only minorities in some of their UT classes. It's an “uncomfortable” situation, she said.

The Fisher vs. UT case “translates into social issues,” she said.

Federal District Judge Sam Sparks ruled in UT's favor in 2009 and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court decision. A Supreme Court ruling is not expected until next year.

Texas NAACP President Gary Bledsoe said UT has followed previous Supreme Court rulings in college admission cases “to the T.”

“There is no reason this case should be before the court. We have great concerns if affirmative action is turned away,” he said and warned a ruling against UT could be divisive for the country.

“This is not the time to close the doors or reduce access for minorities to our flagship universities,” said Luis Figueroa, a San Antonio-based lawyer for MALDEF.

More than 50 of the country's largest corporations have signed legal briefs in support of the UT's admission policy, noted Mexican American Legislative Caucus chairman Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio.

“The last thing we want is to have a factory of young men and women coming out of the high schools with no place to go and very little opportunity,” he said.

gscharrer@express-news.net

Correction: State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, is chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. A story on Wednesday's page B3 of the Express-News and on mySA.com incorrectly identified him.